


Can't want you

by navaan



Series: Can't want you [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Community: wintercompanion, Episode: s03e11 Utopia, M/M, Missing Scene, complicated romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-31
Updated: 2010-03-31
Packaged: 2017-10-13 02:08:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack isn't sure what to think of his supposed ex-lovers behaviour during <em>Utopia</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't want you

When the man, that is his former lover with a new face and some new quirks, forbids Jack to flirt with Martha, Jack takes it as the beginning of their more than overdue unfriendly confrontation. If anyone has the right to be angry at this man, it's him.

There is no real confrontation, only veiled comments and no explanations. Instead he gets to gossip with the Doctor's new and exceptionally good-looking companion. The man himself stays distant and stand-offish. There are the first signs of irritation, but it seems Martha takes the Doctor's disapproval more to heart then Jack does.

The Doctor stays testy towards him. As if Jack was the one who had left, leaving his lover behind on a station full of dead bodies. He makes some cruel remarks that really hurt, but aside from that he doesn't really talk to Jack at all. Not properly. Only about Rose. And only in their happiness do they connect for a moment.

After they arrive at the Silo – the sanctum of the last surviving humans - Jack begins to see that something is definitely going on and it has to do with him. The Doctor is constantly reprimanding him for initiating any kind of conversation – with anyone, really. It starts to grate on Jack's nerves. He already has to deal with the overload of finding the man again so soon after a very traumatic death experience in Cardiff and he is so happy to be in space again. Finally he is meeting more than the weekly dose of hostile aliens that the rift usually throws at them in Cardiff.

The real world is open to him again.

So when he smiles at someone and the Doctor snaps at him to stop it, he grows more than a little annoyed. The Doctor is the one who left him behind without a word! And when they meet again he hadn't even introduced him properly to the _beautiful girl_ he was travelling with. What was his problem?

But it's _the Doctor_. He may look different, he may sound different, but he is still what he has always been. The most brilliant, glorious and crazy hero type Jack has ever met. And with the usual curiosity and genius the hero throws himself into the adventure at hand. If there was time Jack would honestly just be happy sitting down watching the man's excitement at so many unseen, unknown things around him. But excitement or not the Time Lord still a moment to snap at Jack for greeting the beautiful alien lab assistant a little too enthusiastically.

It doesn't really make any sense. The Doctor had always been sarcastic in his comments about his love life but never before had he interfered or stopped him – not even when they had been lovers. He had always understood Jack's need for more.

Is it the regeneration? Has more changed than face and speech patterns?

But with a scientist trying to find a way to save humanity there is no time to ask. Jack and Martha are put to work on their own and the Captain is in his element. Working with the Doctor. This is what the man does best: saving people. And Jack knows the drill – and honestly he has missed _this_. The excitement, the suspense and tension, working side by side and listening to every cue the man would give him. It's brilliant and everything he wanted it to be, what it has been back then. Although the Doctor is a different one, the excitement is essentially the same.

It makes Jack feel at home again. This is familiar.

He doesn't deceive himself. This isn't anywhere near the easy companionship they once shared.

There is some time for banter however and Jack feels the Doctor is trying to make him feel a little more welcome, although he keeps giving him strange, half-angry looks, that make Jack's stomach flutter with something between hope and dread. He feels the Professor watch them with interest, but it's Chantho, who finds a quiet moment to ask: “Chan the Doctor and you... are you... tho?”

For a moment he isn't sure he knows how to answer that. Then the Doctor gives them a searing look and calls over to them in an irritated tone: "Jack, could you please stop flirting for once and give me a hand?" 

Martha grumbles something about hands in jars, but shuts up, when the Doctor gives her a pointed look.

He stares over his shoulder open mouthed. Then he whispers to the assistant: “No, and we haven't been for some time...”

Chantho gives a nervous giggle and hurries away. The whole incident leaves him confused and a little exited. He pays better attention to the Doctor's erratic moods afterwards and finds that he can't blame anyone for thinking that the man acts like a jealous, angry lover. Still Jack can't really make sense of it. The Doctor remains snotty and short tempered towards him, keeps him at arms length - but then he doesn't want Jack to spend too much time in anyone else's company either.

Is he not to be trusted with others or is there reason to believe this new version of the Doctor is having a hard time _watching_ him with others?

When the Doctor makes him the obvious volunteer for a suicide mission, it's a shock. The man had known! All this time.

“How long have you known?”

“Ever since I ran away from you. Good luck.”

He had assumed as much for years, still the offhandedness of the remark is disconcerting. He ran away from me, Jack thinks.

There is also no question about the mission. The Doctor asks and he steps into a room full of an unknown but very deadly sort of radiation quite willingly.

This new regeneration is so different from the last one, he muses, but _how_ different, really?

Separated by a heavy safety door and thick security glass, it's still the first time that they are really alone and can talk. So Jack, after years of wondering and raging and waiting can finally find the answer to the question he wants to ask, wanted to ask so many years ago:

_Why did you leave me behind? Why did you leave me at all?_

The answer is even less pleasant then he would have thought.

He explains how he found out about his “condition”. “I’m the man who can never die. And all that time you knew.” It's said in a deliberately accusing tone and the Doctor watches him through the window while he goes on working. His eyes are distant and and filled with a nearly hidden regret. Jack can see it. Some things didn't change too much..

“That’s why I left you behind. It’s not easy even just…just looking at you Jack, ‘cause you’re wrong.”

That hurts. To know his lover ran from him without explanation because he didn't want to face something he couldn't stand to look at. A man who faced things like Daleks and Cyberman without blinking couldn't even be bothered to stay and explain.

Things get a little clearer afterwards. He knows now what happened and it makes it easier to cope knowing that it had been Rose that made him immortal. She had wanted him to live.

The Doctor still looks at him with a soft unreadable expression. Jack, finally understands that what he sees there is regret and something close to an apology. It makes him think of the Time Lord's irritation and the way that Yana and Chantho looked at them, and suddenly he thinks he understand everything. The Doctor wants the time to get over his prejudice and he doesn't want Jack hooking up with anyone until he is ready. Can that really be true? Or is this wishful thinking?

When he has finished and can finally look at his old friend without a barrier between them, the man is already busy at the controls.

Jack knows that it's probably his last chance to get him alone before the five people left on the station leave inside the Tardis. He grasps the Doctor by the arm and makes him look at him. The Doctor does so defiantly, probably expecting an argument now that they are really face to face.

Instead he leans forward to pull the man into a ravaging kiss. There is a surprised and slightly muffled squeak from the Doctor, who freezes up against him for a moment. Jack begins to thin he has miscalculated after all. Then the man kisses back, all fiery passion and possessiveness. Jack is pressed back against some controls. Strong hands are holding him suspended and he can't protest because this is so incredibly sexy. When the kiss ends they are both panting. “Was that feeling wrong?” he asks in a rough voice, still gasping for breath.

“I'm working on that.” The Doctor sounds no less breathless, but a little unsure. “I thought it would be better, not to say anything. But you figured me out, before I was ready. You should be with me, but... I can't want you, but I still _do_. I can't look at you, but I'd really like you to not look at anyone but me... How wrong is that?”

Jack tries not to smile. He wants to tell the man, that he hadn't been hiding his jealousy very well. But it doesn't matter now. What matters is the future. “Will you be ready some day?”

Brown eyes narrow and he shrugs. “Give me time. You've time to spare, Jack.”

He smiles back sadly. “Yeah, but I'm a very sociable person. Don't expect me to wait forever. Even if I _have_ forever, I won't wait that long.”

The Doctor nods, getting the message. “Just make sure, that if I'm ready there is room for me, Captain.” It sounds a little uneasy. They have never talked about Gallifreyan relationships – the man had barely spoken about Gallifrey at all. Were Gallifreyans monogamous? Did they have a concept of open relationships? They hadn't ever talked about it.

The Doctor had been so open in accepting his 51st century sexuality that he had never asked about it either. It was surprising to find a possessive streak there _now_ that the man couldn't even accept his existence. Contradiction seemed to be part of the package. Typical. Still the same old Doctor.

Jack smiles again lovingly. “As if there ever would be _no_ room for you, Mister.”

Then the Doctor reaches over his shoulder turning a lever. “We'll find the time to get this right, Jack, I promise,” he whispers springing back into action, “But not now. Now we have things to do.” He smiles at him, relieved but quick to get some distance between them.

The Captain is only to happy to follow his lead again. The way it should always have been.


End file.
